Tag: mind

The one phrase which reflects my work as a life coach and rebirther for highly sensitive people is ‘I felt self-love from within’. This phrase came from a highly sensitive and creative lady who is in her thirties. After her first rebirthing session she repeatedly shared how amazed she was by what she felt in her body. Just before this amazing feeling in her belly which she described as a feeling of fullness and happiness, she felt tension flowing out of her body through her arms.

She could make a clear distinction between this feeling of self-love from within and the self-love she formerly knew as thoughts and actions directed by her head. This was way better. She felt her inner child on her chest telling her all sorts of happy things like ‘Yeah, finally!’ and ‘What shall we do after this session’. Her inner child was quite content and super happy she broke through her fear and anger.

The voice of her inner child had a counter voice which she felt at the upper right side of her head. This voice was like ‘No way, this can’t be it’ and ‘You’re not there yet’. In daily life she is held back by this critical voice, this voice was loaded by negative comments and limiting thoughts and fuelled by fear, lots of fear. She is taking decisions out of fear. One of the reason she came to me was that she had enough of this fear.

It was time for fear to get the hell out of her system, out of her head, her body, especially her head.

She is longing for a positive change. She wants to embrace her sensitivity fully. She wants to feel more energy. She wants to finally attract a life partner who fits her life and needs.

I have the exact recipe for her to follow. After years of seeing psychologists, undergoing different therapies and acting studies she has come to the point to process deep-rooted fears, anger and sadness. She has always felt different. She wasn’t heard as a child. She was criticised by a parent. The recipe is to express the pain which her body and mind have hold onto for so long.

Fear is longing to be embraced by unconditional love.
The tears of her inner child are waiting to be shed.

With this first session she has peaked through the door towards the life she desires to live. It takes a huge amount of effort, energy and courage to walk this path, but it is worth it, all the way.

Like this:

Are you always cold? Or do you often have cold hands and feet? If so, one way to feel comfortable in your skin again is to start rebirthing. Rebirthing is breaththerapy to release pain from trauma’s. Pain as in heavy hearted emotions such as sadness, anger and fear. People who suffer from being cold all the time could still be walking around with unresolved emotional issues. My experience is that people even get colder up until they need to shiver during a rebirthing session.

And there they are, laying on a air mattress, covered in fleece blankets trying to focus on the conscious connected breathing. The coldness which was already in the body comes to the surface together with other physical expressions such as cramp in the face, arms and/ or legs, pressure on the chest and palpitations in the neck. While the cold energy stands for fear related to trauma’s also the fear of feeling all these physical expressions might arise. The combination of how the body reacts and how the mind reacts while breathing on reaches the point that the rebirthee is not able to handle anymore. When I see this happening I support and motivate them to express what they feel.

For the rebirthee it is hard to make this switch towards expressing their feelings, because up until this point they held on to their fears, they controlled their life by the actions and choices they made out of fear. While feeling the fear during a rebirthing session you are letting go of the need to control. In fact you don’t have any energy to control, it’s such a strong energy that takes up all your attention. Moreover it’s an energy you want to express in stead of holding onto forever.

When I see the palpitations leave the neck area the rebirthee has already cried a bit. After a good cry you’re left with a body shaken and stirred by lots of energy finding a way out your body, mind and energy body. It’s wonderful to see how relieved people are. After having shared the initial shock of feeling so much in their body, they are calmer compared to how they walked in. Many people aren’t aware of how tense they are until they actually start feeling their bodies. How about you? How do you feel? Would you like to feel more connected to your body? In my opinion, rebirthing is key to a healthy emotional life. Let’s start breathing.

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Since rebirthing is a part of my life I started guiding conscious connected breathing sessions for an hour or I have combined it with other coachingtechniques. The results keep on amazing me. I am absolutely in awe of the deep rooted emotions to which I have been exposed: sadness, anger, guilt, disappointment, hatred and feelings of helplessness and powerlessness.

Imagine me holding the hand of a woman in her fourties for fifty minutes while she cries out the physical pains going through her body. All I need to do is soothe her by stroking her hand, shoulder and tell her she is allowed to cry. She may let her tears flow abundantly, she even may yell everything the hell out of her system. That yelling part didn’t go naturally, I guided her voice by letting myself hear so she would cross that border of feeling ashamed and allowing herself to let her voice be heard.

In this particular case we have focussed all sessions up until now (6 sessions) on doing the conscious connected breathing on the yogamat. Last time she was here she shared many positive changes in her life. Even though we don’t talk much during sessions it has had it’s positive effects like speaking up for herself, choosing for the things she wants to do, expressing her irritation, opening up to receive love and switching of the television so she could rest properly for another day of work.

Two of the most important successes for her would be being able to handle the panick attacks she suffers when she feels stressed without taking medicine. And secondly, she decided to reduce the amount of antidepressants she was taking. I am so proud of her; she is growing into the person she is, but didn’t feel. Since starting the rebirthing sessions she feels her body more and more and acts upon what her body and mind needs. She started to trust her body and mind again.

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I’ve had another morning filled with powerful positive emotional changes. Acknowledging and channeling anger towards the right person frees body, mind and soul. I have known this for quite some time now, but still I am in awe when the people in front of me change into the person they truly are.

The first step in acknowleding who you are is to fully accept all of the emotions which the mind has been resisting for a long time. Depending on the person I guide the first few sessions will be focussed on mental coaching before starting the physical work. Some people have been living from out of their heads for as long as they remember which means they rationalize everthing. This limits the body to feel. Therefore these sessions are focussed on aligning the mind with the body. In my view and also based on the feedback of the coachees the mind has a need to understand first in order to feel safe to express their emotions.

On the other hand I have seen people who feel safe at the beginning. From the moment they cross my doorstep, walk into the coachingpractice and sit down, they feel comfortable to show their emotions within a few minutes. Their trust and openess allows me to guide them through coaching techniques which helps them feel even more. The goal is to change unwanted emotions such as sadness, anger, resentment, disappointment, hatred into positive emotions. This won’t change overnight, read with one coaching technique, but every coaching technique allong the way brings the coachee closer to letting go of limiting thoughts and emotions.

This morning I guided and witnessed a man in his fourties stamping his feet, fighting with his arms and screaming out anger, disappointment and sadness with a loud and harsh voice. Afterwards he burst into tears. His inner child expressed sadness which was suppressed for decades. The anger was directed to his mother. After the standing exercise he sat down and tears were still running down his face. These tears were telling another story; the story of feeling grateful and joyful that his life was about to start. He felt inner peace on his chest. This was his fifth session.

I am enormously grateful to be able to do this work. Guiding people towards a life which they can live from the core of their heart is a satisfactory job.

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Rebirthing is a simple breathing technique that can transform your body, mind, spirit, as well as your perception of who you were, who you are, and who you will be. It releases emotional, mental and physical patterns; creates joy and aliveness in the body; and gives the client a feeling of empowerment and self-control, and creates energetic relaxation. The breath work process releases the emotional, negative charge out of cell memory. The process causes integration of unresolved emotional, physical, mental and spiritual energies. The primary result is an experience of clarity at a very core level. The process empowers a person into choice and out of victimhood.

Rebirthing is also reffered to as Conscious Connected Breathing (CCB). CCB goes as follows: while breathing we connect inhalation with exhalation and exhalation with inhalation, in doing so we create a circular motion of breath. While inhaling we inhale life energy. We need life energy to feed our cells and soul. Rebirthing is not a mind therapy, it works on an emotional level. Different people react in different ways. The conscious connected breathing releases built up tensions in your body.

Think of psychical reactions such as: feeling cold or the opposite; super hot like fire, sweaty hands, pressure on the forehead, tension in the throat, chest or stomach center, a tingling sensation in arms, legs, face or just about everywhere, itching and the sensation of wanting to curl your feet up or move your knees from side to side. Along with the psychical reactions different emotions may surface: sadness, anger, fear, guilt, loneliness and so on. It does not matter how you react, what matters is that the process works and works very quickly and thoroughly.

Releasing physical reactions of the body which are related to trauma will help you regain your health. I’ve guided people who were used to living with physical pains, depression, lots of stress, breathing problems such as asthma and hyperventilation or were either abusing themselves by overeating, drinking problems, smoking.

After the session

The breathing work takes you to a place in which you can work and feel through emotions on a subconscious level. At the same time I make sure you’re still here with me, we communicate in a way which supports your emotional growth. You will feel trust and strength to move on breathing, because it’s the way to emotional freedom. You do not leave the session without being totally back in the here and now. You won’t feel disconnected or spaced out in any way. I always recommend that people do whatever feels right for them, that they pamper, indulge, and look after the inner child, because it is your emotional self who has expressed deep rooted emotions. That night, and perhaps over the next three days, you may have interesting dreams, things that come up from the past, past memories. It’s helpful to write these down for the follow up session.

Within seven to ten days, everything has settled. You should then be totally able to know how you were before the rebirthing experience and how you are afterwards, and you will see a most distinctive difference. How does it manifest? With feeling of freedom, security, the loss of fear, pain, the real determination, the knowledge that you are going to get through anything and everything, a new peace within yourself, a new hope, feelings of being in control, in touch with the powerful part of yourself, and most certainly increased awareness of creativity and sensitivity.

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A Chinese proverb says an invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, despite the time, the place, despite the circumstances. The thread can be tightened or tangled, but never be broken.

We are all the same. All of us want to be happy. When happiness is considered as a door to a room, peace is another door to the same room. Si it should be easy to become happy and peaceful. What is holding us back?

There are different methods to achieve happiness and peace. Respect for each other is important. Superiority ideas like ‘I am the best’, ‘my religion is the best’ or ‘my country is the best’ are barriers to happiness and peace. Respectful contacts with people with another background can help to reduce these barriers. The mix of people in these modern times gives more possibilities for such contacts.

In Tibet we have the word ‘gogsem’. That means the three ways of being: mind, body and talk. The mind is the boss. The mind is an extremely powerful tool to find the root for happiness and peace. The mind can find inner peace and happiness with your being as you are. Meditation, compassion and openness are ways to use the mind for finding peace. These ways can give you energy. Words can give a feeling of happiness. At the other hand words can make enemies. Be aware of that, when you are thinking ‘I am right and you are wrong.’ Think also about happiness of others. When you are acting with an open mind and a good heart, it will be easier to keep your relations good. That will radiate a feeling of being rich, more than when you are only focused on your own profit.

Worries make sick. Some problems we can control. When you can not control problems, let it go. Let fear go, then peace will come. Don’t grasp for happiness. Strive for stable happiness, as a second nature. When difficult situations come, it is important to know in advance how to keep peace. Be aware of anger and neutralize it before it is too late. When anger grows, it can make you blind. Anger and peace are like fire and water: they can not be together. When you think that anger is normal, you have to ask yourself the question whether suffering is normal. Suffering is the result of anger. When you are able to control anger, you are able to bring peace and as result you will reduce suffering. All of this you can do by ‘lojong’: a Tibet word for ‘training the mind’.

If you expect that you will be pushed to pass your own limits, say “no” with respect for the other. Say it in time, before you loose control over your anger. Be patient for the good moment to say it. Say “no” when the other is relaxed. Most of all: be clear. It is very important to be open about your limits in a way to make it simple for the other to understand your “no”. Look further than your own position and try to understand your relationship. It is the best to reach mutual understanding. Look for a good way to meet your limits and to strive to meet the demands of the other. Share understanding in a good atmosphere, with a cup of tea.

Face to face contact is important for good understanding. Telephone, e-mail and other ways of communication are good for ‘neutral’ messages. But when you really have to solve a problem, face to face communication is the best way to minimize the risk for uncontrolled anger. Look inside your mind before you solve a problem. You need to have inner peace before you can give it to others.

Take benefit from what you have heard so far. Use what you can use. Forget what you can not use. Make clear for yourself what works for you. Ask yourself where you can find happiness. When you know that, you have a goal to direct your activities on. Be honest to your heart and don’t follow other people blindly when they say that you can find happiness. In these modern times many people promise happiness when you follow their advises. Decide deep in your heart whether their promises may bring peace or restlessness

I received this text from the Wereldmuseum in Rotterdam on the 30th of March in 2007.